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New research shows that a single phenomena might be behind all eruptions on the sun, including solar flares. The research documents the existence of a confining, magnetic “cage” which determines the size, power and type of any given solar eruption that occurs. The solar flares that jet out from our star send gamma radiation hurtling towards Earth and are hard to predict, even though we’re improving on that front. And since they can be disruptive to humanity, like how a solar flare eruption caused a blackout in the entire Canadian province of Quebec in 1989, it’s good to know as much as we can about them....

Of all the many potential catastrophes that could occur in outer space, none dig into solitary horror so deeply as floating away in a spacesuit. Space is known to make even the best-trained astronaut disoriented, and getting confused in the wrong moment on a spacefaring mission could mean life or death. That’s why the non-profit research and development company Draper is trying to make it a little less terrifying, filing a patent for a spacesuit with a self-return system....

LAS VEGAS — Samsung’s press conference today began with a lot of self-congratulatory pomp and circumstance. They touted their number one status in digital TV sales (although, I swear I heard a similar claim from at least one other manufacturer today). Samsung president Gee Sung Choi at one point gave voice to the company’s ambitions while discussing the current football playoffs, crowing “It doesn’t matter which team you support, Samsung will always be the winner!...

Few things are more constant than gravity. From all the items on a bookshelf or desk to massive planets like Jupiter and Saturn, everything obeys gravity in the same way. But physicists at Durham University in the U.K. are now saying that might not be the case. The scientists are studying an alternative to the standard theories of gravity they’ve dubbed the Chameleon Theory, which, they say in a press statement, “changes behavior according to the environment....

On May 5, 2013, the world’s first 3D-printed plastic gun was fired. Called the Liberator, it was designed and output by a group called Defense Distributed, headed by a 25-year-old Texas law student and committed libertarian named Cody Wilson. Hand-wringing and debate ensued. Depending on whom you asked, the 3D-printed gun was a deadly threat or an important Second Amendment advance—but, whether they feared it or loved it, most commentators agreed that the Liberator was a major milestone of some kind....

This new infrared-based image of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is one of the most detailed yet.It was taken by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope, an airborne observatory, which flies around on a Boeing 747SP jetliner.Astronomers will use this image as a guide to direct future imaging projects taken up by the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA/SOFIA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/HerschelA stunning new panoramic image of the Milky Way is revealing all sorts of fresh insight....

There are plenty of words we throw around in everyday speech that take on different, much more specific meanings when they’re used in a technical context. One place you’ll find a bunch of them is in the realm of material science.This fantastic primer video from Real Engineering highlights a few in particular: stiff, tough, strong, ductile, brittle, and hard. It’s a great rundown for newbs, or refresher for anyone who hasn’t seen Young’s modulus in a while....

Media Platforms Design TeamA recently released video may show —the kind that terrorists worldwide prize. Arms control experts say the appearance of several kinds of weapons in the hands of a single group shows that wars in the Middle East are spreading deadly weapons outside of government stockpiles—and government control.Syrian rebels being armed with modern antiaircraft missilesThe weapons in the video are Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS)—shoulder-fired missiles that can shoot down warplanes or airliners....

Even when you’re flying around the freeways that encircle the desolate city, you can see them: shadows of homes looming vacant along the same arteries Detroit’s former residents used to exit the place. You head into the actual neighborhoods, and there’s maybe one occupied house on any given block—the rest fester in abandonment. Blight has crept over the landscape in the 60 years it has taken the city’s population to dwindle from 1....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe rover rolls its way across a barren red sea. It has just finished a geologic survey of Mars’s massive Endeavor crater–finding more proof of the planet’s watery past–and already has its eyes set on the next landmark.No, this isn’t Curiosity, the $2.5 billion dollar extra-planetary playboy that landed last August. This is Opportunity, its older, meeker, and pared-down cousin. By most measurements, Opportunity is less impressive. Well, with one exception: It will not die....

Scientists studying male birds-of-paradise have found that evolution has created something that human engineers have been trying to achieve for years—a black so deep that it can capture 99.95 percent of direct light.That level of light absorption in their velvety black plumage rivals manmade ultra-black materials found in the lining of space telescopes. The similarities even extended to the microscopic, where the structures of the wings resemble engineered designs.“Evolution sometimes ends up with the same solutions as humans,” says Yale Professor Rick Prum, senior writer of the paper in Nature Communications, in a press release....

Media Platforms Design TeamOne year ago, the European Space Agency managed to do what no other space agency has done: successfully landed on a comet. When the Philae touched down on the surface of Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko, it became one of the defining moments for the agency. And though the solar powered-probe has powered down a few times due to low sunlllight, the science it’s been able to return has still been invaluable....

Four years ago Honda UK set a Guinness Book of Records for driving its Mean Mower 116.575 mph but that record was short-lived, as the following year a Norwegian group hit 134 mph with their grass cutter. The lawnmower arms race has taken another leap forward as Honda UK has just introduced the Mean Mower V2, which it claims will best the 134 mph mark, and possibly reach 150 mph.This teaser video opens like the latest Ken Block Gymkhana, replete with ignition and speedo shots, as well as that mean sounding exhaust....

Mark Avino/Smithsonian InstitutionOn April 2, 1968, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey made its world premiere at Washington D.C.’s Uptown Theater. Fifty years later, the stark neoclassical suite from the film’s penultimate scene has been artfully reimagined at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, just four miles from the Uptown. Starting on April 8, film fans will be able to walk in David Bowman’s shoes.The 26 x 33-foot suite, called “The Barmecide Feast,” isn’t the original set from the film....

On a normal day, it takes about an hour to warm up a B-52. But not if you use explosive charges to kick-start its engines. A new video released by the U.S. Air Force demonstrates the cartridge start, or “Cart Start” method. Airmen use small controlled explosive charges to get a bomber’s turbofan engines moving, allowing it get off the ground faster. View full post on YoutubeThe bombers of the U....

Take your typical pair of gas station shades, the kind you buy when you’re headed west on a road trip and found you’ve forgotten your regular pair right as you head into a sunset. There’s not much to remark upon: cheap plastic, flimsy lenses, and likely broken by the time you’ve got to fill up the car again. Shwood sunglasses on the other hand, are the kind you want to tell all your friends about....

• We’re living in a golden age of machines. Everything, from bicycles to pickup trucks, is bigger, better and faster than ever before. This includes ATVs. Just when you thought Kawasaki had aced the field with its award-winning Prairie 650 V-twin, here comes the 2003 V-Force 700–bigger, better and faster.Media Platforms Design TeamKawasaki The heart of the racy V-Force is a 697cc version of the SOHC 4-valve-per-cylinder 90° liquid-cooled V-twin that powers the Prairie....

The YouTube is full of alien hunts and conspiracy theories, and a new one from the channel Secureteam10 revolves around an obscure Antarctic land mass known as the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Technically a British Overseas Territory, a relic of colonial days, the entirety of the island’s population is composed of members of the British Antarctic Survey. But Secureteam10 thinks something else may have joined them.If you pull up Google Maps and go to the coordinates—54°39'44....

China now has more warships than the United States Navy. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), informally known as the Chinese Navy, recently hit a landmark number of 300 ships—thirteen more than the U.S. Navy. Although admittedly imposing, the number doesn’t tell the whole story. America’s fleet is much larger on a ship-by-ship basis, including eleven nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and an almost equal number of amphibious assault ships. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ ChinaPower project has uploaded an analysis of the PLAN versus the navies of several other regional countries and major powers....

For everyone for whom Kerbal Space Program was too heavy on little green men (and women) and too low on charts and graphs, there’s FlightClub.io, the ultra-nerdy SpaceX simulator that allows you to run tests and answer the question “what if I used a heavy-lift rocket meant for the International Space Station crew missions and instead put a light satellite on top” or “what if I added a bunch of boosters onto a rocket to make it go higher....